The Book of Revelation By Rupert Thomson (Fiction)
Alfred A. Knopf , Reviewed by Jonathan Miles
From the English novelist, a tale of brief sexual slavery and the years of dissipation that follow.
(03/20/00)

Bodega Dreams By Ernesto Quiñonez (Fiction)
Vintage Contmporaries, reviewed by Anderson Tepper
A streetwise, darkly lyrical first novel celebrates Spanish Harlem.
(03/16/2000)

Abbreviating Ernie By Peter Lefcourt (Nonfiction)
Villard, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
This wickedly comic novel, about a woman who lops off her (dead) husband's penis, is the satirical follow-up to "Di and I."

Abe: A Novel of the Young Lincoln By Richard Slotkin (Fiction)
Henry Holt and Company, review by Laura Miller
A splendid piece of mythmaking views the young hero's coming of age through the lens of Huckleberry Finn.
(02/11/00)

The Abyssinian By Jean-Christophe Rufin (Fiction)
W.W. Norton & Company, reviewed by Brigitte Frase
A prize-winning French novel turns out to be a mound of merde.
(09/22/99)

Accordion Crimes By E. Annie Proulx (Fiction)
Scribner, reviewed by Dwight Garner
To follow-up her acclaimed "The Shipping News," Proulx has written a series of stories about hard-luck immigrants and their deep love of accordion music.

A Crime In the Neighborhood By Suzanne Berne (Fiction)
Algonquin Books, reviewed by Maud Casey
Set in Washington, D.C., in 1972, this novel is about a murder -- and one family's break-up -- during the Watergate years.

Acts of Revision By Martyn Bedford (Fiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Dwight Garner
This first novel, set in the U.K., is a psychological thriller about schoolboy humiliation and long-simmering revenge.

Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture By James Twitchell (Nonfiction)
Columbia University Press, reviewed by Rich Nichols
A witty and unsettling guide to our advertising-drenched culture.

A Fall in Denver By Sarah Andrews (Fiction)
Scribner, reviewed by Edward Neuert
Geologist-sleuth Em Hansen investigates why oilmen are falling thicker than aspen leaves from the windows of a Denver skyscraper.

A Fez of the Heart: Travels Around Turkey in Search of a Hat By Jeremy Seal (Nonfiction)
Harvest, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Tracing the origins of a hat inextricably linked to Turkey (but banned there in 1925), the young author delivers a vivid peek inside a complex culture.

"Afterburn" By Colin Harrison (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, review by Peter Kurth
It's mean. It's tough. It's ugly. It's male. But is it art?
(01/19/00)

After Rain By William Trevor (Fiction)
Viking, reviewed by Charles Taylor
Short stories, set in rural Ireland, by a writer with a genius for getting at the texture of parched lives.

After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back By Nancy Venable Raine (Nonfiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Laura Miller
A powerful, reflective and scrupulously honest account of rape, and one writer's attempt to come to terms with it.
(08/21/98)

After the Fall By Suzanne Somers (Nonfiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
A deeply narcissistic memoir, from the former "Three's Company" star and ThighMaster queen, about her struggle with low self-esteem
(06/17/98)

After the Madness: A Judge's Own Prison Memoir By Sol Wachtler (Nonfiction)
Random House, reviewed by David Futrelle
The former chief judge of New York writes about his life in prison after his conviction on an ugly, infamous harassment charge.

Afterwards, You're a Genius: Faith, Medicine, and the Metaphysics of Healing By Chip Brown (Nonfiction)
Riverhead Books, Reviewed by Mike Musgrove
A journalist heads for the Hamptons to expose a New Age healing racket and finds himself turning into a believer.
(01/27/99)

The Aguero Sisters By Cristina Garcia (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Lise Funderberg
A review of Cristina Garcia's novel "The Aguero Sisters," by Lise Funderberg.

Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice By April Sinclair (Fiction)
Hyperion, reviewed by Kate Moses
This sequel to "Coffee Will Make You Black" chronicles the absurdities of 1970s radical chic, as glimpsed through the eyes of a young African-American woman.

Ain't You Glad You Joined the Republicans? By John Calvin Batchelor (Nonfiction)
Holt, reviewed by Phil Leggiere
An enthusiastic history of the Republican party, from a novelist with an eye for telling detail.

Airframe By Michael Crichton(Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
Soon to be a major movie, no doubt, this novel of disaster in the skies is the latest from the author of "Jurassic Park."

A Journey With Elsa Cloud By Leila Hadley (Nonfiction)
Books & Co./ Turtle Point, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
A silken, idiosyncratic travel memoir about a mother's attempt to reconnect with a daughter studying Buddhism in India.

Los Alamos By Joseph Kanon (Fiction)
Broadway Books, reviewed by William Georgiades
A surprisingly well-written and subtle thriller, set amid the Manhattan Project in 1945, by a first-time writer.

Alias Grace By Margaret Atwood (Fiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Paige Williams
A convicted, but possibly innocent, 19th century murderess befriends a psychiatrist in this Booker Prize-nominated novel.

A Lazy Eye By Mary Morrissy (Fiction)
Scribner, reviewed by James Marcus
A collection of sensuously accurate short stories, set in Ireland, from a young writer with a gift for evoking blighted lives.

A Little Yellow Dog By Walter Mosley (Fiction)
Norton, reviewed by James Marcus
The author's celebrated gumshoe, Easy Rawlins, returns in this L.A.-based mystery about a missing shipment of heroin.

A Monk Swimming By Malachy McCourt (Nonfiction)
Hyperion, Reviewed by Lucy Grealy
From the brother of Frank ("Angela's Ashes"), himself a noted raconteur, a memoir of an Irish rogue's life in New York City.
(05/21/98)

All around Atlantis By Deborah Eisenberg (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Albert Mobilio
Quiet, elegiac short stories about people who are hanging on, dropping out or in free fall, by a master of the form

All over but the shoutin By Rick Bragg (Nonfiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
A memoir, from a New York Times national correspondent, about his dirt-poor upbringing in the deep South.

"All Tomorrow's Parties" By William Gibson (Fiction)
G.P. Putnam's Sons, Reviewed by Frank Houston
In his newest novel, the cyberspace visionary stays one step ahead of the future.
(10/28/99)

Almost Heaven By Marianne Wiggins (Fiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
A foreign correspondent returns home after eight years in war-torn Eastern Europe, in a novel that's equal parts love story, psychodrama and balderdash.
(09/17/98)

Already Dead By Denis Johnson (Fiction)
HarperCollins, reviewed by Dwight Garner
A big, shaggily intellectual crime novel about misfits, burnouts and mystics in laid-back Northern California.

The All-American Skin Game, or, The Decoy of Race By Stanley Crouch (Nonfiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Rich Nichols
One of the most original voices in American letters on race, jazz, cinema and the state of contemporary society.

All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs By Elie Wiesel (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Jim Paul
The Nobel Peace Prize winner recalls his formative years and the birth of his life as a writer.

Almost No Memory By Lydia Davis (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Rob Spillman
Fifty-one difficult and provocative stories that hack apart every preconceived notion of what a short story should be.

Altar Music By Christin Lore Weber (Fiction)
Scribner, review by Mary Elizabeth Williams
An ex-sister's tale of sexually confused priests and predatory nuns. (03/22/00)

ALWAYS IN PURSUIT: Fresh American Perspectives, 1995-1997 By Stanley Crouch (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by David Futrelle
Punditry about politics and culture, from the New York Daily News columnist and New Republic contributing editor
(02/25/98)

The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters By Wendy Lesser (Nonfiction)
Pantheon Books, Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
A first-rate West Coast critic looks at herself looking at art
(03/08/99)

America in so Many Words: Words that Shaped America By David K. Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf (Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Laura Miller
Two lively new reference books about the origin of words and the slang slung by American subcultures.
(12/03/97)

America Needs a Raise By John J. Sweeney (Nonfiction)
Houghton-Mifflin, reviewed by Phil Leggiere
A manifesto-cum-pep rally about the current state of American labor, from the charismatic new president of the AFL-CIO.

American Dreamers: The Wallaces and Reader's Digest: An Insider's Story By Peter Canning (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, reviewed by Dwight Garner
A portrait of the making (and eventual unmaking) of the magazine that has been called "the top publishing success since the Bible."

American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party
By Frederick J. Simonelli (Nonfiction)
University of Illinois Press, reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
A new biography explores the life and legacy of America's premier fascist.
(07/19/99)

American Nomad: Pop Visions, Restless Politics, and Apocalyptic Memories at the End of the Millennium By Steve Erickson (Nonfiction)
Holt, reviewed by David Futrelle
One of the strangest volumes of presidential campaign reportage ever written, commissioned by -- but not printed in -- Rolling Stone.

American Junk By Mary Randolph Carter (Nonfiction)
Penguin, reviewed by Albert Mobilio
A handsomely illustrated guide to pop ephemera, from shiny ceramic dogs to plastic watermelon wedges and fish kitsch.

American Pastoral By Philip Roth (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Albert Mobilio
A departure for Roth, this novel concerns Seymour Levov, a blond, supremely confidant athlete, adored by the Jews of Newark.

American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley -- His Battle for Chicago and the Nation By Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor (Nonfiction)
Little, Brown & Co., review by Andrew O'Hehir
A big biography tells the full story of the legendary politician, with a sharp focus on his battle to keep the Windy City segregated. (05/11/00)

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson By Joseph J. Ellis(Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by David Futrelle
A subtle portrait of our often contradictory third president, a fierce democrat who surrounded himself with aristocratic opulence.

The American Way of Death Revisited By Jessica Mitford (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
This updated version of the author's muckraking classic proves that the funeral industry is as corrupt as it ever was.
(07/29/98)

The Americanization of the Holocaust Edited by Hilene Flanzbaum (Nonfiction)
Johns Hopkins University Press, reviewed by Jesse Berrett
Two books ask how -- and why -- a European catastrophe became central to American culture.
(06/10/99)

Amsterdam By Ian McEwan (Fiction)
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, Reviewed by Craig Seligman
This Booker Prize-winning novel is about two men -- a composer and a leftist newspaper editor -- and their travails after the death of a friend
(12/09/98)

An Ocean in Iowa By Peter Hedges (Fiction)
Hyperion, Reviewed by Charles Taylor
The touching story of a 7-year-old boy and his nonconformist mother, from the author of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape"
(04/30/98)

The Anatomy of Disgust By William Ian Miller (Nonfiction)
Harvard University Press, reviewed by David Futrelle
A compelling exploration of an emotion the author links to misanthropy and a hatred of the fetid fertility of "life soup."

Angela's Ashes By Frank McCourt(Nonfiction)
Scribner, reviewed by John Glassie
An engrossing, flinty memoir, from a pub-crawling first-time writer, about his poverty-stricken life with his Irish family.

"Anglomania"" By Ian Buruma (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by JoAnn Gutin
Why, oh why, do we love the English so?
(04/27/99)

Animal Husbandry By Laura Zigman (Fiction)
Dial Press, Reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
When a TV producer named Jane Goodall loses yet another boyfriend, she searches the natural world for lessons about commitment
(01/05/97)

Anita and Me By Meera Syal (Fiction)
The New Press, reviewed by Christine Muhlke
An actress and screenwriter ("Bhaji on the Beach"), delivers this winsome novel about an Indian girl and her rambunctious friend.

The Antelope Wife By Louise Erdrich (Fiction)
HarperCollins, Reviewed by Elizabeth Judd
A sprawling novel about several generations in two Native American families, from the author of "Love Medicine."
(04/14/98)

An Instance of the Fingerpost By Iain Pears (Fiction)
Riverhead, Reviewed by Daniel Reitz
Set in 17th century England, this sprawling and "Rashomon"-like first novel deconstructs a murder among academics in Oxford.
(05/13/98)

Anything We Love Can Be Saved By Alice Walker (Nonfiction)
Random House, reviewed by Elizabeth Judd

A grab-bag of essays and speeches by the activist writer, on such topics as dreadlocks, Fidel Castro and female genital mutilation.

Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life By Laurence Bergreen (Nonfiction)
Broadway Books, reviewed by Sarah Vowell
An elegant biography of the jazz great, one that places Armstrong in social as well as musical context.

Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child By Noël Riley Fitch (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Patric Kuh
A new biography shows how culinary legend Julia Child was able to take the airs out of French food before America was able to.

Apples By Frank Browning (Nonfiction)
North Point Press, Reviewed by Robert Sietsema
An engaging study, from a writer who descends from a long line of Kentucky apple-growers, of "the hardiest, most resilient, and most diverse fruit on the earth"
(09/23/98)

Architecture: Choice or Fate By Leon Krier (Nonfiction)
Andreas Papadakis, Reviewed by Ray Sawhill
This wry, epigrammatic book, by the architect and town planner Leon Krier, will surprise readers who associate neoclassicism with stiffness, brutality and imperialism
(10/29/98)

AREA 51: The Dreamland Chronicles: The Legend of America's Most Secret Military Base By David Darlington (Nonfiction)
Henry Holt, Reviewed by David Bowman
One journalist's account of the vibrant UFO-centric culture in Nevada, where many true-believers insist aliens have landed.
(12/17/97)

Armadillo By William Boyd (Fiction)
Knopf Reviewed by Charles Taylor
Set in London, this complicated, hazy novel concerns itself with the often illegal activities of a young insurance adjuster
(10/13/98)

The Art Fair By David Lipsky (Fiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Susan Shapiro
An engaging send-up of Manhattan's downtown art scene, from a young writer whose mother is a noted abstract painter.

Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery
By Jeanette Winterson (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Susan Shapiro
This collection of nonfiction from one of the U.K.'s most talented -- and notorious -- novelists covers such topics as Virginia Woolf, book collecting and the trouble with contemporary gay literature.

The Art Of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary JournalismEdited by Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, reviewed by William Georgiades
A compelling and offbeat anthology of literary journalism, including such writers as Mailer, Didion, Orwell and Hunter Thompson.

The Art of the Comeback By Donald Trump with Kate Bohner (Non Fiction)
Times Books, reviewed by James Poniewozik
It came from the '80s! Donald Trump's latest book tells how he overcame an early-'90s financial slump to return to his former gold-plated glory.

As Francesca By Martha Baer (Fiction)
Broadway Books, reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
By a Wired editor (and first serialized in Hotwired), this novel delves into torrid online relationships and their mysteries and discontents.

As She Climbed across the Table By Jonathan Lethem (Fiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Elizabeth Judd
This sly, inventive novel features a romantic triangle between a professor, a physicist and a hole in the universe.

As Though I Had Wings By Chet Baker (Nonfiction)
Buzz books, reviewed by Charles Taylor
A recently discovered, and remarkably lackadaisical, memoir of gigs, drugs and women -- by the dissipated jazz legend.

Ashes to Ashes By Richard Kluger (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Michael Ross
A magisterial new examination of America's love affair with nicotine, and a chilling examination of the rise of Big Tobacco companies.

Assuming the Position By Rick Whitaker (Nonfiction)
Four Walls/Eight Windows , Reviewed by Dennis Drabelle
A onetime hustler takes a long, hard look at the Life.
(10/08/99)

Asylum By Patrick McGrath (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Catharine Tuttle
Patrick McGrath's tale of lunacy and mutilation

At Eighty-Two: A Journal By May Sarton (Nonfiction)
W.W. Norton, reviewed by Beth Wolfensberger
Small pleasures and ironic regrets from one of America's most beloved diarist's final years.

The Atlas By William T. Vollmann (Fiction)
Viking, reviewed by Jim Paul
In this compelling mix of fiction and autobiography, the author, an obsessive traveler with a taste for danger, reports from locations such as Sarajevo, Inuit Canada and Rangoon.

Audrey Hepburn's Neck By Alan Brown (Fiction)
Pocket Books, reviewed by Elizabeth Pincus
Set in Tokyo, this disarmingly funny book -- which details the life of a 23-year-old cartoonist -- contrasts the idiosyncrasies of American and Japanese culture.

Autopornography: A Memoir of Life in the Lust Lane By Scott O'Hara (Nonfiction)
Harrington Park Press, reviewed by Daniel Reitz
Three books that delve into the glamour, and the excesses, of the gay pornography industry
(12/05/97)

Automated Alice By Jeff Noon (Fiction)
Crown, reviewed by Richard Gehr
Further tripped-out whimsy from the author of "Vurt," this time, a version of Lewis Carroll's Alice set in 1998 Manchester, England.

A White Merc With Fins By James Hawes (Fiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Richard Gehr
A quixotic, sharply observed first novel, set in England, about a balding, depressed young man who decides to rob an exclusive bank.

Babel Tower By A.S. Byatt (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Laura Miller
Two trials -- for divorce and obscenity -- are the center of this ambitious, passionate novel, set in the 1960s, by the author of "Possession."

Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story By Tony Scherman (Nonfiction)
Smithsonian Institution Press, Reviewed by Greg Villepique
An account of one of rock 'n' roll's legendary drummers doesn't go deep enough.
(08/31/99)

Bad Chemistry By Gary Krist (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Elizabeth Judd
From the respected short-story writer, a thriller about the role that smart drugs may have played in a suburban murder
(01/20/97)

Bad Land: An American Romance By Jonathan Raban (Nonfiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Dwight Garner
A hard-scrabble journey through rural life in the American West, from a Brit "trying to find my own place in the landscape and history."

Misha Glenny's "The Balkans" and Michael Ignatieff's "Virtual War" (Nonfiction)
review by Max Garrone
Behind the bombings in Kosovo, two journalists find Western self-interest and self-deception about the physical sacrifice war requires. (05/04/00)

"Balthus: A Biography" By Nicholas Fox Weber (Nonfiction)
Knopf, review by George Rafael
A fat volume skewers the old goat who made his name painting nymphets in bloom.
(01/04/00)

The Baltimore Case By Daniel J. Kevles (Nonfiction)
Norton, Reviewed by Hal Hinson
An exhaustive account of the travails of Nobel Prize-winning scientist David Baltimore, who was falsely accused of fraud by a colleague.
(09/11/98)

Basil Street Blues: A Memoir By Michael Holroyd (Nonfiction)
W.W. Norton & Co., review by Janice P. Nimura
The distinguished British biographer turns the spotlight on his dubious family and himself. (03/02/00)

BASQUIAT: A Quick Killing in Art By Phoebe Hoban (Nonfiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Alissa Lara Quart
A biography of the first black American artist to achieve international stardom, who overdosed on heroin at age 27
(07/23/98)

Be Cool By Elmore Leonard (Fiction)
Delacorte Press, Reviewed by Gary Krist
Chili Palmer, the Miami loan shark turned Hollywood bigwig, is back in Elmore Leonard's welcome return to the "Get Shorty" formula.
(01/21/99)

THE BEAST IN THE NURSERY: On Curiosity and Other Appetites By Adam Phillips (Nonfiction)
Pantheon books,, Reviewed by David Futrelle
From the quirky and lucid British psychoanalyst, a look at the origins of -- and the problems inherent in -- curiosity
(02/11/98)

A Beautiful Mind By Sylvia Nasar (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Richard Dooling
A lucid, restrained bio of a Nobel Prize-winning mathematical genius who succumbed to, then overcame, madness
(06/29/98)

Being Dead By Jim Crace< (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, review by Gary Krist
A haunting novel about a couple caught and killed in flagrante delicto -- how they got there, and what happens before they're found. (03/30/00)

Berryman's Shakespeare: Essays, Letters, and Other Writings By John Berryman (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Reviewed by Alex Abramovich
A fearless modern poet conjures Shakespeare, including an essay based on a famous lecture that enraptured audiences, and reveals himself
(03/26/99)

Best American Spiritual Writing 1998 Edited by Philip Zaleski (Nonfiction)
HarperSanFrancisco, Reviewed by Michael Joseph Gross
An egocentric collection of essays -- from writers such as Cynthia Ozick, Andre Dubus and Rick Moody -- and the nature of spiritual belief
(12/08/98)

The Best of Crank! By Bryan Cholfin (Fiction)
Tor Books, Reviewed by Scott McLemee
Literate and often charming short stories, culled from the science fiction zine Crank!; contributors include Jonathan Lethem, Ursula K. LeGuin and Michael Bishop.
(10/21/98)

Be Sweet By Roy Blount, Jr. (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
A shaggy memoir, from the Southern humorist, about the various women in his life -- and the origins of his comic bent
(06/01/98)

Betty Friedan: Her Life By Judith Hennessee (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Norah Vincent
Broken crockery and catfights: A new biography of the feminist matriarch may make you want to take out a contract on her life.
(03/29/99)

"Between Father and Son" By V.S. Naipaul (Nonfiction)
Knopf, review by Akash Kapur
The correspondence of a naive and vulnerable youth whose famous bile hadn't yet started to rise.
(01/18/00)

The Binding Chair By Kathryn Harrison (Nonfiction)
Random House, review by Laura Morgan Green
Is the author's latest abused-woman fantasy -- this one set in China and France in the early decades of the 20th century -- revelatory or pornographic? (05/01/00)

Black and Blue By Anna Quindlen (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Laura Green
A gripping domestic novel about a woman in flight from her past, and from her abusive husband
(02/10/98)

Black Girl in Paris By Shay Youngblood (Fiction)
Riverhead, review by Gaiutra Bahadur
A breathless novel traces the footsteps of Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, but sidles around the topic of race.
(02/16/00)

Black Hawk Down By Mark Bowden (Nonfiction)
Atlantic Monthly Press, Reviewed by Mark Schone
A hair-raising account re-creates the firefight in Mogadishu, the U.S. Army's bloodiest battle since Vietnam.
(03/11/99)

Bleeding London By Geoff Nicholson (Fiction)
The Overlook Press, reviewed by Rob Spillman
A wild-eyed novel, from a writer known for exploring fetishes, about three characters whose paths cross in contemporary London.

Blind Eye: How the Medical Establishment Let a Doctor Get Away With Murder. By James Stewart (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Bill Vourvoulias
A throrough investigation tells a hair-raising story but doesn't go far enough in its indictment of the medical profession.
(09/02/99)

Blindness By José Saramago (Fiction)
Harcourt Brace, Reviewed by Jesse Berrett
From the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for literature, a gripping allegorical novel about an epidemic of "white blindness."
(10/16/98)

Bloodstained Kings' By Tim Willocks (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
This thriller about a New Orleans psychiatrist who's drawn into a vast sea of corruption has an unusually nasty edge
(02/17/98)

Blue Angel By Francine Prose< (Fiction)
Harper Collins, review by Pam Rosenthal
The young and heartless seduce the old and foolish, in a satire of p.c. Puritanism on campus. (04/07/00)

The Blue Bedspread By Raj Kamal < (Fiction)
Random House, review by Sudip Bose
A brother and sister get too close in a gritty first novel (04/11/00)

Blue Bossa By Bart Schneider (Fiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
A memoir by a former New York Times Book Review editor about her poor upbringing on Chicago's South Side
(03/06/98)

The Bounty By Derek Walcott (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Albert Mobilio
Four new collections by contemporary poets, ranging from pop culture savvy, to tropical lyricism, to mild naturalism, to the lacerating riddles of a mind on fire.

Boyhood: Scenes From A Provincial Life By J.M. Coetzee (Nonfiction)
Viking, reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
An account of the award-winning author's childhood in white South Africa and his painfully self-consciousness younger self.

Batman Collected By Chip Kidd (Nonfiction)
Bullfinch Press, reviewed by Richard Gehr
Mountains of lovingly-photographed kitsch about the Caped Crusader, compiled by an acclaimed Knopf book designer.

The Bear Went Over the Mountain By William Kotzwinkle (Fiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Edward Neuert
In this publishing industry satire from the bestselling author of "ET," a bear finds a manuscript in the woods, and heads for Manhattan.

Bear and His Daughter By Robert Stone (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Jennifer Howard
Booze hounds, dope heads, trippers and pill poppers populate these seven stories about getting over (or giving into) substance abuse.

Because They Wanted To By Mary Gaitskill (Fiction)
Simon & Schuster, reviewed by Richard Gehr
Masochistic girls, sadistic boys and other heat-seeking misfits are depicted in the author's second collection of short fiction.

Becoming Modern By Carolyn Burke (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Megan Harlan
A life of the forgotten Modernist poet Mina Loy, a glamorous bohemian artist whose friends and admirers included Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum
By Kate Atkinson (Fiction)
St. Martin's Press, reviewed by Megan Harlan
Dad's a philanderer, Mum's grouchy, sisters are befuddled -- but the young protagonist of this unusual first novel, set in the U.K., thrives anyway.

Best Seat in the House: A Basketball Memoir By Spike Lee with Ralph Riley (Nonfiction)
Crown, reviewed by Rob Spillman
The film director's love affair with professional basketball began with the 1969-70 Knicks, and has not faded with time.

The Big Con By David W. Maurer (Nonfiction)
Anchor Books, reviewed by Steve McQuiddy
Six decades after its original publication, an investigation of larceny stakes its claim as an American classic.
(08/03/99)

Birds of America By Lorrie Moore (Fiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Dave Eggers
Lorrie Moore likes to write about broken people, but she's one of the funniest writers alive. This collection of short stories captures her at the top of her form.
(10/02/98)

Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women By Elizabeth Wurtzel (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, Reviewed by Lily Burana
An examination, from the author of "Prozac Nation," of how women are punished, and men aren't, for certain types of behavior.
(04/20/98)

Blake: A Biography By Peter Ackroyd (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Edward Neuert
A thorough, readable exploration of William Blake's life and the hallucinatory genius of his work.

Blind Pursuit By Matthew F. Jones (fiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Gary Krist
A brooding literary novel/police procedural that begins with the abduction of an 8-year-old girl from her school bus stop.

The Blonde on the Streetcorner' By David Goodis (Fiction)
Serpent's Tail/Midnight Classics, Reviewed by David L. Ulin
This reissued 1954 novel, from a lost master of hard-boiled fiction, is about an aspiring songwriter on Philadelphia's meanest streets
(03/13/98)

The "Blood in the Sun" trilogy By Nuruddin Farah (Fiction)
Arcade, Reviewed by Anderson Tepper
In a wild, exuberant trilogy, Africa's greatest novelist sets out on a warping exploration of Somalian life and consciousness.
(09/14/99)

Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War By Barbara Ehrenreich (Nonfiction)
Metropolitan Books, reviewed by Megan Harlan
A short but probing look at the history of warfare, by the well-known Time magazine columnist.

Blue: The Murder of Jazz By Eric Nisenson (Nonfiction)
St. Martin's, reviewed by Ray Sawhill
Nisenson's protest about the declining state of the art.

Blues Up and Down By Tom Piazza (Nonfiction)
St. Martin's, reviewed by Ray Sawhill
Piazza's collection of vibrant essays

Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood By bell hooks (Nonfiction)
Henry Holt, reviewed by David Futrelle
The often polemical hooks delivers an unexpectedly poignant and eloquent evocation of the pleasures and the sorrows of her childhood.

"Bone by Bone" By Peter Matthiessen (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Roger Gathman
The third installment in the Everglades trilogy revisits a lynching -- this time from the victim's point of view.
(04/13/99)

The Bonehunters' Revenge: Dinosaurs, Greed, and the Greatest Scientific Feud of the Gilded Age By David Rains Wallace (Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, Reviewed by Thomas Hackett
The fury of two paleontologists tells us much about the temper of the late-19th century.
(11/04/99)

The Book of Man By Barry Graham (Fiction)
Serpent's Tail, reviewed by Scott Baldinger
A sensible, sweet-natured tale of a writer, his heroin-addicted mentor, and a great deal of vomiting.

A Book of Reasons By John Vernon (Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Dustin Beilke
Looking into the reclusive life of his late brother, a novelist produces an anti-memoir.
(09/17/99)

Book of Shadows: A Modern Woman's Journey into the Wisdom of Witchcraft and the Magic of the Goddess By Phyllis Curott (Nonfiction)
Broadway, Reviewed by Lisa Carver
The author, a Harvard grad and a high-powered attorney, writes about her preoccupation with witches, magic and goddess worship.
(10/26/98)

The Book of Yaak By Rick Bass (Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Rob Spillman
A meditation on the threatened natural beauty of the Yaak Valley in northwest Montana, one of the most remote places in the United States.

Bound Feet and Western Dress By Pang-Mei Natasha Chang (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
A luminous memoir about Chang's great-aunt and her remarkable journey across much of the world -- and most of the 20th Century.

Boy in the Water By Stephen Dobyns (Fiction)
Metropolitan Books, Reviewed by Thomas Hackett
Naked teenagers, mutilated animals and a serial killer terrorize a guilt-ridden shrink at a boarding school.
(07/08/99)

The Boy on the Green Bicycle By Margaret Diehl (Nonfiction)
Soho Press, Reviewed by John Freeman
A writer remembers the horror of her brother's death when she was 9 -- and the pain and growth that came of it.
(08/23/99)

The Boys of My Youth By Jo Ann Beard (Nonfiction)
Little, Brown, Reviewed by Charles Taylor
Autobiographical essays about sex, family, alcoholism and childhood, from a gifted young writer.
(04/15/98)

Breakfast on Pluto By Patrick McCabe (Fiction)
HarperCollins, Reviewed by Daniel Reitz Shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize, McCabe's new novel is partly about Ireland's troubles and partly about cross-dressing and the search for love.
(12/24/98)

Breakfast With Scot By Michael Downing (Fiction)
Counterpoint Press, Reviewed by Greg Bottoms
In a smart, funny and affecting novel, two gay men inherit an 11-year-old boy and blanch when he turns out to be a budding queen.
(11/16/99)

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason By Helen Fielding (Fiction)
Viking, review by Maria Russo
She's back, she's got her weight down, she's got Mark Darcy and she's in a Thai jail on drug charges.
(02/29/00)

Bright Angel Time By Martha McPhee (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Sam Sifton
In this feminine road novel, dysfunctionality and love battle against a background of ridiculous early-'70s utopianism.

Broke Heart Blues By Joyce Carol Oates (Fiction)
Dutton, reviewed by Michelle Goldberg
The novelist explores the repercussions of a violent act in a town where life ends with high school.
(07/28/99)

The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief By James Wood (Nonfiction)
Random House, reviewed by Euny Hong Koral
Literary criticism remains alive and well (the novel is another story) in the work of two masters of the form.
(07/01/99)

Brown Dog of the Yaak By Rick Bass (Nonfiction)
The Dream of the Marsh Wren By Pattiann Rogers (Nonfiction)
Milkweed Editions, reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
Two authors confront the dramas of the natural world and the writing life.
(07/23/99)

Bucket of Tongues By Duncan McLean (Fiction)
W.W. Norton, Reviewed by Steve McQuiddy
A former janitor's gritty tales of Scottish street life.
(07/06/99)

Bucking the Sun By Ivan Doig (Fiction)
Simon & Schuster, reviewed by Maud Casey
A big, strapping novel about the building of the monumental Fort Peck Dam over the Missouri River in the 1930s.

Buckyworks By J. Baldwin (Nonfiction)
John Wiley & Sons, reviewed by Phil Leggiere
A tough, winsome biography of the charismatic utopian futurist, arguing for Fuller's relevance at the fin de siecle.

Buddha's Little Finger By Victor Pelevin (Fiction)
Viking, review by Craig Offman
In a novel by turns shabby, sexy and visionary, the Russian virtuoso captures post-perestroika Moscow in all its weirdness. (05/05/00)

Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life By Howard Sounes (Nonfiction)
Grove Press, Reviewed Jonathan Miles
A biography of the lowlife nihilist forgoes the fig leaves.
(05/27/99)

Bunny Modern By David Bowman (Fiction)
Little, Brown Reviewed by David Bowman
In this review, the author of "Let the Dog Drive" faces the ultimate critic of his second novel: himself
(02/09/98)

The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness By Wole Soyinka (Nonfiction)
Oxford University Press, Reviewed by Anderson Tepper
The Nobel Laureate reflects on the potential for healing the wounds of Africa.
(01/26/99)

Burning The Days: Recollection By James Salter (Nonfiction)
Random House, reviewed by Dwight Garner
A savvy, bittersweet memoir about the author's experiences in the military, literary and film worlds.

Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories By Angela Carter (Fiction)
Holt, reviewed by Bruce Barcott
This collection, from a gifted fictional maximalist who bathed in luxurious sentences, charts the arc of her fascinating career.

Burt Lancaster: An American Life By Kate Buford (Nonfiction)
Knopf, review by Daniel Mangin
This gorgeous hunk with a limited range became one of the finest and best-loved actors in Hollywood. (03/10/00)

But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz By Geoff Dyer (Nonfiction)
North Point Press, reviewed by James Marcus
A young British novelist riffs on the lives of jazz greats such as Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, with often surprising results.

Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine By Stephen Braun (Nonfiction)
Oxford University Press, reviewed by Michael Gerber
How do alcohol and caffeine scramble our brains, and why do we like it so much when they do? This book about the world's two most popular drugs seeks some answers.

By the Shore By Galaxy Craze (Fiction)
Atlantic Monthly Press, Reviewed by Charles Taylor
Galaxy Craze's debut novel is a hushed and tentative affair.
(05/24/99)

Cadillac Jukebox By James Lee Burke (Fiction)
Hyperion, reviewed by Elizabeth Pincus
The quixotic detective Dave Robicheaux travels to Mexico to solve the 30-year-old murder of a beloved Civil Rights figure.

Cafe Europa: Life After Communism By Slavenka Drakulic (Nonfiction)
Norton, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Smart and funny personal essays from the Croatian writer, about the cultural growing pains of Eastern European countries.

Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year By David Ewing Duncan (Nonfiction)
Bard, Reviewed by Mike Musgrove
The calendar is something most people take for granted, but in this well-researched book, we find that it is the result of a quirky interplay of politics, history and religion.
(12/17/98)

A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul Written and Selected from the World's Sacred Texts By Leo Tolstoy (Nonfiction)
Scribner, reviewed by Edward Neuert
A book of daily affirmations, from the great writer, featuring snippets from Shakespeare, Lao Tsu, Ruskin, the Talmud, the Dhammapada, Socrates, Jefferson and others.

The Calling By Catherine Whitney (Nonfiction)
Crown Publishing, Reviewed Mary Elizabeth Williams
A lapsed Catholic goes back to her roots and explores our fascination with nuns.
(05/28/99)

The Captain's Fire By J.S. Marcus (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Edward Neuert
Life in post-Wall Berlin, as seen through the eyes of a troubled young American (mid-30s, Jewish, bisexual) obsessed with the city's murderous past.

Caravaggio: A Life By Helen Langdon(Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, reviewed by George Rafael
A gripping biography of the painter turns up one living, kicking corpse.
(07/15/99)

Cary Grant: A Class Apart Graham McCann (Fiction)
Columbia University Press, reviewed by Jennifer Howard
This admiring biography describes how a working-class kid named Archie Leach remade himself into Hollywood's epitome of style.

CASANOVA: The Man Who Really Loved Women By Lydia Flem (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Tim Duggan
A biography of the legendary lothario, from a writer who argues that Casanova was -- among other things -- a proto-feminist(11/26/97)

Caught Inside By Daniel Duane (Nonfiction)
North Point Press, reviewed by Bruce Barcott
A chronicle of Northern California surf culture, from a young writer who, unemployed, decided to spend a year searching for the ultimate wave.

Cavedweller By Dorothy Allison (Fiction)
Dutton, Reviewed by Dan Cryer
From the author of "Bastard Out of Carolina," a novel about a rock singer who returns to her Bible Belt hometown.
(03/09/98)

A Certain Age By Tama Janowitz (Fiction)
Doubleday, Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
In her best work in years, the author shows she's been studying at the Wharton school.
(08/10/99)

A CERTAIN JUSTICE: An Adam Dalgliesh mystery By P.D. James (fiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Rachel Pastan
In her wry new mystery, James introduces us to a lawyer who has "four weeks, four hours, and fifty minutes left of life."
(12/16/97)

Chaos Theory By Gary Krist (Fiction)
Random House, review by Jonathan Miles
It starts quietly enough, with two kids copping a joint -- and then it spins into a breakneck thriller.
(01/27/00)

Charles At Fifty By Anthony Holden (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
A biography about the public and private life of the misunderstood and often vilified man who would be king.
(12/07/98)

Charles: Victim or Villain By Penny Junod (Nonfiction)
HarperCollins, Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
A biography about the public and private life of the misunderstood and often vilified man who would be king.
(12/07/98)

Chasin' the Devil'S Music: Searching for the Blues By Gayle Dean Wardlow (Nonfiction)
Miller Freeman, Reviewed by Tony Scherman
Essays, articles and interviews by a Mississippi blueshunter who proves that Robert Johnson never met Satan at the crossroads.
(01/18/99)

Childhood By Patrick Chamoiseau (Nonfiction)
University of Nebraska Press, Reviewed by Anderson Tepper
The novelist's second memoir celebrates a boyhood spent in a storytelling family among the riotous richness of Martinique's Creole culture.
(02/23/99)

China Chic By Valerie Steele and John S. Major (Nonfiction)
Yale University Press, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Foot binding was barbarous, but that doesn't mean the shoes weren't fabulous.
(04/30/99)

A Child's Night Dream By Oliver Stone (Fiction)
St. Martin's Press, reviewed by Gary Krist
This ultra-tortured coming of age novel, written by the gonzo film director, may one day be hailed as a camp classic.

Cinderella & Company By Manuela Hoelterhoff (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
This irresistible blend of gossip, reportage and crackerjack observation follows Italian mezzo soprano Cecilia Bartoli through today's colorful opera scene.
(09/28/98)

Cinnamon Gardens By Shyam Selvadurai (Fiction)
Hyperion, Reviewed by Akash Kapur An epic novel captures Sri Lankan high society at the turn of the century, starched but beginning to wrinkle.
(07/16/99)

Circling the Drain By Amanda Davis (Fiction)
Rob Weisbach Books, reviewed by Polly Morrice
A debut collection by a writer with nerve runs the gamut from conventional to the experimental.
(06/07/99)

Circumnavigation By Steve Lattimore (Fiction)
Holt, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Intelligent short stories populated by neighborhood bullies, decent husbands who drink too much, effeminate Navy guys and tough, skinny, clairvoyant teenage girls.
(12/04/97)

Citizen K By Mark Singer (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Charles Taylor
A New Yorker staff reporter describes being taken in by Brett Kimberlin, a prisoner who claimed to have sold pot to Dan Quayle.

City of God By E.L. Doctorow (Fiction)
Random House, review by Julia Gracen
Harrowing stories of war and vengeance interwoven with a quest for enlightenment
(02/18/00)

Civility By Stephen L. Carter (Nonfiction)
Basic Books, Reviewed by Beverly Gage
From the well-known Yale law professor, an argument that American society has grown far too surly and impolite
(05/15/98)

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella By George Saunders (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by James Marcus
Pitch-black satire, from an exciting new writer, about America's tendency to turn everything -- the Civil War, a day at the beach, our farms -- into a theme park.

Class Trip By Emmanuel Carrère (Fiction)
Metropolitan Books, reviewed by Charles Taylor
A kid's self-pity haunts macabre French novel."

"Clear Springs: A Memoir" By Bobbie Ann Mason (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Melanie Rehak
Bobbie Ann Mason left Kentucky for New York City, but the writer in her stayed home on the farm.
(05/07/99)

Clement Greenberg: A Life By Florence Rubenfeld (Nonfiction)
Scribner, Reviewed by Deborah Wilk
A biography (and a critical reexamination) of the powerful, larger-than-life art critic who championed abstract expressionism
(03/26/98)

A Clever Base-Ballist: The Life and Times of John Montgomery Ward By Bryan Di Salvatore (Nonfiction)
Pantheon Books, Reviewed by Jonathan Miles
A spirited biography of a 19th century ballplayer smacks a pie in the face of baseball nostalgia.
(07/29/99)

CLONE: The Road to Dolly, and the Path Beyond By Gina Kolata (Fiction)
William Morrow, Reviewed by Etelka Lehoczky
From the New York Times science writer, a level-headed look at cloning and its discontents
(01/06/97)

CLOSE TO THE BONE: Memoirs of Hurt, Rage and Desire Edited by Laurie Stone (Nonfiction)
Grove Press, reviewed by Laura Green
A collection of autobiographical essays, bound together by the chasm between our desire for unconditional love and the unlikelihood of finding it.

Cloud Chamber By Michael Dorris (Fiction)
Scribner, reviewed by Elizabeth Judd
A parade of colorful narrators tells the story of a mixed-race family in this sequel to "A Yellow Raft in Blue Water."

Coal to Cream By Eugene Robinson (Nonfiction)
The Free Press, reviewed by Casey Greenfield
An African-American writer discovers a raceless society in Brazil -- or so it seems at first.
(08/27/99)

The Cobra Event By Richard Preston (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Katherine Whittemore
The science is riveting in "The Cobra Event." The story, however, is only fair.(11/20/97)

Kowloong Tong, The Collected Stories By Paul Theroux (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin and Viking, reviewed by Dwight Garner
An abrupt and often nasty novel about Hong Kong and a devastatingly fine collection of stories, both by the well-known author and travel writer.

Cocaine Nights By J.G. Ballard (Fiction)
Counterpoint, Reviewed by Scott McLemee
Set in a resort enclave along the Mediterranean coast, the author's new novel is an exploration of psychic numbness and jaded tastes
(06/22/98)

"The Cockroach Papers" By Richard Schweid (Nonfiction)
Four Walls Eight Windows, review by Pete Wells
They're revolting, they're fascinating, they're brilliantly engineered and every one of those vile little bugs is different.
(01/03/00)

The Code Book By Simon Singh (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, Reviewed by By Joshua Kosman
A fascinating and remarkably accessible history of cryptography that ends with a $15,000 contest.
(10/06/99)

Cold Mountain By Charles Frazier (Fiction)
Anchor Books, reviewed by Charles Taylor
A love story set in the waning days of the Civil War, this first novel recalls the best of Cormac McCarthy's books.

"The Coldest Winter Ever" By Sister Souljah (Fiction)
Pocket Books, Reviewed by Sean Elder
Sister Souljah gives herself a starring role in her first novel.
(04/12/99)

The Collector Collector By Tibor Fischer (Fiction)
Metropolitan Books, reviewed by Dwight Garner
A slim, absurd novel from the young British novelist Tibor Fischer, narrated by a piece of pottery -- or, as it prefers, "a bowl with a soul."

Colony Girl By Thomas Rayfiel (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Sarah Vowell
A rebellious young Eve stands at the center of a novel about a Midwestern religious cult.
(09/16/99)

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams By Wayne Johnston (Fiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Roger Gathman
Weaving fact with fiction, a novelist creates a brilliant fantasia on the modern history of Newfoundland.
(07/14/99)

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother By James McBride
(Nonfiction)
Riverhead, reviewed by James Marcus
The author relates the story of his mother, the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, who moved to Harlem at age 18 and married a black man.

The Coming of the Night By John Rechy (Fiction)
Grove Press, reviewed by Frank Browning
The gay novelist veers toward camp and very nearly touches greatness.
(09/08/99)

Commodify Your Dissent: The Business of Culture in the New Gilded Age: Salvos from the Baffler Edited by Thomas Frank and Matt Weiland (Nonfiction)
Norton, reviewed by David Futrelle
"Baffler" book: Your culture-crit rantings grow tiresome.

Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death By Susan D. Moeller (Nonfiction)
Routledge, Reviewed by Dante Ramos
Whose fault is it -- the public's, or the media's -- that Americans seem to care less about foreign news coverage?
(11/09/98)

CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War By Tony Horwitz (Nonfiction)
Pantheon Books, Reviewed by Maryanne Vollers
The author, a former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, explores the landmarks -- and the outer limits -- of the Southern mind
(03/10/98)

Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie By Peter Alson (Nonfiction)
Crown, reviewed by Jeanie Pyun
An up-to-the-minute exploration of gambling and its discontents, from the shaded campus of Brown University to New York's mean streets.

Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host: The Autobiography of Larry Sanders As told to Garry Shandling, with David Rensin (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Joyce Millman
This pseudomemoir, like the long-running HBO show it derives from, delivers a fun house-mirror reflection of the late-night talk show wars.
(12/02/98)

"Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" By Gregory Maguire (Fiction)
Reganbooks, Reviewed by Rachel Elson
Cinderella is a manipulative, self-pitying twit who loves to sweep ashes in this retelling of the fairy tale.
(12/17/99)

The Consolations of Philosophy By Alain de Botton (Nonfiction)
Pantheon, review by Virginia Vitzthum
Six great philosophers on six big problems, rendered in terms that even Bart Simpson could follow. (04/24/00)

A Conspiracy of Paper By David Liss (Fiction)
Random House, review by Andrew Roe
A series of murders in the sordid London of 1719 lead a "Philip Marlowe in tights" to the financial giants of the day. (03/07/00)

A Conspiracy of Tall Men By Noah Hawley (Fiction)
Harmony Books, Reviewed by David Bowman
Don DeLillo meets 'The X-Files' in this novel about a professor of 'conspiracy theory' whose wife is killed in a suspicious airplane accident
(07/10/98)

The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes By Stephen Holmes and Cass Sunstein (Nonfiction)
W.W. Norton & Company, Reviewed by Dante Ramos
Grappling with America's tortuous tax policies
(03/18/99)

"Country of Exiles" By William Leach (Nonfiction)
Pantheon Books, Reviewed by Chris Lehmann
In a nation stripped of allegiance to place, everybody knows this is nowhere.
(04/22/99)

Crazy Horse By Larry McMurtry (Nonfiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
The first in a new series of brief biographies demonstrate that bigger isn't always better.
(01/28/99)

The Conversations at Curlow Creek By David Malouf (Fiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Rob Spillman
An impressionistic novel, set in the Australian outback in 1827, about a soldier and the prisoner he is supposed to help hang.

The Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writings By Wei Jingsheng (Nonfiction)
Viking, reviewed by Mark Hertsgaard
Fierce, earthy, crusading prison letters from a Chinese dissident who ranks with the 20th century's great freedom fighters.

Cracks in the Iron Closet By David Tuller (Nonfiction)
Faber & Faber, reviewed by Scott Baldinger
The lives of gay and lesbian Russians, both before and after the fall of communism, told as part travelogue and part historical inquiry.

The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim By Richard Pollak (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, reviewed by Russ Baker
An exposé of the eminent psychologist and author of "The Uses of Enchantment," whose life and career appear to have been a fraud.

The Crime of Sheila McGough By Janet Malcolm (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
The journalist continues her ruminations, this time on an attorney whose tenacity brought the wrath of the legal system down on her.
(02/05/99)

Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know By Roy Gutman and David Rieff (Nonfiction)
W.W. Norton & Company , Reviewed by Akash Kapur
A mixture of reportage and legal discussion adds up to an encylopedia of evil.
(08/16/99)

The Crisis of Desire: AIDS and the Fate of Gay Brotherhood By Robin Hardy with David Groff (Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, Reviewed by Dante Ramos
A gay activist turns the revolutionary lens of the '70s on the sleepy politics of the '90s.
(07/26/99)

Cross Channel: Stories By Julian Barnes (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by James Marcus
In ten stories that function as a unified work, Barnes unearths the fragile and often fractious relationship between Britain and France.

"Cruddy" By Lynda Barry (Fiction)
Simon & Schuster, review by Heidi Bell
A tender and goofy illustrated novel about a kid whose parents' beatings can't keep her down.
(01/13/00)

Cuba Libre By Elmore Leonard (Fiction)
Delacorte, Reviewed by Edward Neuert
A thriller about gun running during the Spanish American war, from the author of "Rum Punch" and many other novels
(02/12/98)

"The Custom of the Sea" by Neil Hanson and "In the Heart of the Sea" by Nathaniel Philbrick (Nonfiction)
review by By Mark Schone
Two new books serve up hair-raising histories of maritime cannibalism with all the gory details. (04/13/00)

Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism By Daniel Harris (Nonfiction)
Basic Books, review by Greg Villepique
With the malice of a gifted comic, an angry author argues that our "personal" tastes are something we were sold by advertising. (04/26/00)

Dancing After Hours By Andre Dubus (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by James Marcus
One of America's most esteemed short story writers delivers a new collection that reveals the human soul with marvelous tact and delicacy.

Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garcia By Robert Greenfield (Nonfiction)
William Morrow & Co., reviewed by Richard Gehr
The private life of the charismatic guitar hero demonstrates that, among other things, no man is a hero to his drug dealer.

David Brinkley By David Brinkley (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Rich Nichols
Anecdotes and reminiscences, from the man who was there for practically everything.

Day of the Bees By Thomas Sanchez (Fiction)
Knopf, review by Rachel King
A Picasso-like painter and his muse and model play out a tale of love and lust in occupied France. (05/08/00)

Day Job By Jonathan Baird (Fiction)
Allen & Osborne, Reviewed by Alissa Lara Quart
This ersatz journal, accessorized with fake coffee cup rings, offers a bleak and frequently hilarious portrait of today's young white-collar wage slaves.
(09/30/98)

Days of Infamy: Great Military Blunders of the 20th Century .By Michael Coffey (Nonfiction)
Hyperion, reviewed by Mark Schone
One of those mistakes was this book.
(08/30/99)

Dead MeatBy Sue Coe (Fiction)
Four Walls Eight Windows, reviewed by Richard Gehr
Paintings, drawings and notes from this compelling artist depict how 6 billion warm-blooded creatures find their way onto American plates.

"Dear Genius": The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom Collected and edited by Leonard S. Marcus (Nonfiction)
HarperCollins, Reviewed by Katherine Wolff
A remarkable collection of letters, from the legendary children's book editor, to writers such as Maurice Sendak and E.B. White.
(04/13/98)

The Death and Live of Bobby Z By Don Winslow (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Charles Taylor
The brisk, nifty tale of a three-time loser who agrees to impersonate a legendary drug dealer to escape prison -- and the Hell's Angels.

Death in Summer By William Trevor (Fiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Dan Cryer
In this stark and often violent rendering of Britain's class divisions, a young shoplifting runaway becomes a nanny at a stately country home.
(09/25/98)

Death in the Andes
By Mario Vargas Llosa (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Edward Neuert
This tangled political drama by the Peruvian writer/politician tells of a corporal sent to investigate the disappearance of several villagers in the wild Peruvian highlands.

"Killer in Drag" and "Death of a Transvestite" By Ed Wood Jr. (Fiction)
Four Walls Eight Windows, Reviewed by Greg Villepique
The hopelessly inept transvestite filmmaker was also, it turns out, a hopelessly inept transvestite novelist.
(06/22/99)

Deep Play: A Climber's Odyssey from Llanberis to the Big Walls By Paul Pritchard (Nonfiction)
The Mountaineers Press, Reviewed by Scott Sutherland
A book about mountain climbing that attempts, with only middling success, to pick up where Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" left off.
(08/26/98)

The Deep Green Sea By Robert Olen Butler (Nonfiction)
Holt, Reviewed by David L. Ulin
A Vietnam vet returns to Ho Chi Minh City seeking closure, and finds love with a much younger woman
(01/16/97)

Deep Play: A Climber's Odyssey from Llanberis to the Big Walls By Paul Pritchard (Nonfiction)
The Mountaineers Press, Reviewed by Scott Sutherland
A book about mountain climbing that attempts, with only middling success, to pick up where Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" left off.
(08/26/98)

Deliberate Intent By Rod Smolla (Nonfiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Jonathan Groner
Does the First Amendment protect a how-to manual for hit men?
(07/13/99)

The Delicious Grace of Moving One's Hand: The Collected Sex Writings By Timothy Leary (Nonfiction)
Thunder's Mouth Press, review by Jonathan Miles
Acid wasn't the only mindblower the '60s guru preached.
(01/31/00)

Derby Duggan's Depression Funnies By Tom De Haven (Fiction)
Metropolitan/Henry Holt, reviewed by Richard Gehr
A picaresque novel, set during the Great Depression, about the creative and cranky artists and writers who creat comic strips.

Desert Places
By Robyn Davidson(Fiction)
Viking, reviewed by Megan Harlan
The author, a well-known travel writer, recounts a difficult year spent with the Rabari, camel-raising nomads of northern India.

The Designated Mourner By Wallace Shawn (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, reviewed by Rob Spillman
A futuristic new play, about a society that purges its intellectuals, from the well-known actor and playwright.

Desperate Characters By Paula Fox (Fiction)
Norton, Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
A brilliant, cheerless little classic from 1970, long out of print, resurfaces.
(06/16/99)

Desperation By Stephen King (Fiction)
Viking, reviewed by John Mello
The Regulators By Richard Bachman (Fiction)
Dutton, reviewed by John Mello
Two deeply intertwined new novels, from America's most popular horror writer, with the grandiose arc (and gore) of his earlier epics.

Devil Take the Hindmost By Edward Chancellor (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Reviewed by Gary Krist
A history of financial speculation from the Roman Empire to the present brims with bad tidings.
(06/14/99)

The Devil's Chimney By Anne Landsman (Fiction)
Soho Press, reviewed by Kate Moses
A first novel, set largely in South Africa in the early part of the century, about a woman crippled by loss, racism and cultural fear

"The Devil's Cup" by Stewart Lee Allen and "Uncommon Grounds" by Mark Pendergrast (Nonfiction)
Reviewed by Richard Reynolds
Two books about the history of coffee, already a subversive beverage in the 16th century.
(11/23/99)

The Devil Problem (and Other True Stories) By David Remnick (Nonfiction)
Random House, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Essays on subjects ranging from dueling Shakespearian scholars to Michael Jordan, from the talented New Yorker staff writer.

Dewey Defeats Truman By Thomas Mallon (Fiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Dwight Garner
A romantic triangle unfolds among the politically earnest residents of the failed 1948 presidential candidate's small home town.

Diary of an Emotional Idiot By Maggie Estep (Fiction)
Harmony, reviewed by Meg Cohen Ragas
A well-known performance artist and poet chronicles what it's like to be single and desperate in New York's East Village.

The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky: The Unexpurgated Edition Edited by Joan Acocella (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
Four notebooks, published uncensored for the first time, chart the descent into schizophrenia of the Russian dance genius.
(02/25/99)

Dick for a Day Edited by Fiona Giles (Nonfiction)
Villard, reviewed by Christine Muhlke
What a difference a dick makes -- or so say the 52 female writers, poets and artists asked: "What would you do if you had one?"

Dining Out: Secrets from America's Leading Critics, Chefs, and Restaurateurs By Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page (Nonfiction)
Wiley, Reviewed by Dwight Garner
A dishy look at how America's most noted food critics (Ruth Reichl, Patricia Unterman, Gael Greene) go about their work.
(10/23/98)

Disco Bloodbath By James St. James (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
Violent death doesn't get more FABULOUS than the murder of drug dealer Angel Melendez by party promoter Michael Alig.
(08/18/99)

Disgrace By J.M. Coetzee (Fiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
The winner of the 1999 Booker Prize is a bleak tale of human and animal misery in post-apartheid South Africa
(11/05/99)

The Distance to the Moon By James Morgan (Nonfiction)
Riverhead Books, Reviewed by Brad Wieners
A writer offers his own take on the literature of the road: the cross-country trip as midlife crisis.
(05/14/99)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly By Jean-Dominique Bauby (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by David Futrelle
A remarkable memoir, from the former editor of French Elle, about his complete paralysis following a massive stroke.

The Divorce Culture By Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Leora Tanenbaum
An expanded version of the author's controversial essay about family values, "Dan Quayle Was Right," published in the Atlantic Monthly.

Dixie Rising By Peter Applebome (Nonfiction)
Times Books, reviewed by Paige Williams
A New York Times reporter argues that the South's ideals -- think gun control, race and music -- profoundly influence modern America.

Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil By Rafael Yglesias (Fiction)
Warner Books, reviewed by Robert Spillman
A big, rambling and ambitious novel about a psychotherapist who believes he can rid people of their darker impulses.

Do the Windows Open? By Julie Hecht (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Charles Taylor
Chatty short stories about a nervous, quirky late-thirtysomething woman, from a New Yorker writer with a cult following

Doing Battle: The Making of a Skeptic By Paul Fussell (Nonfiction)
Little, Brown, reviewed by Dwight Garner
An honest, angry memoir, from a noted social critic, about how World War II, and the U.S. Army's fanaticism, forever changed his life.

Don't Die Before You're Dead By Yevgeny Yevtushenko (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Rich Nichols
A gripping novel of epic scope, informed by firsthand knowledge, about the attempted coup in Russia in 1991.

Don't Tell Dad By Peter Fonda(Nonfiction)
Hyperion, Reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
An amiable memoir, from the actor son of Henry Fonda, about his nightmarish childhood, his drug days and his scattered career
(04/06/98)

Double Billing: A Young Lawyer's Tale of Greed, Sex, Lies, and the Pursuit of a Swivel Chair By Cameron Stracher (Nonfiction)
William Morrow, Reviewed by Yunah Kim
Underwhelming yarns of plantation life among the hypocrites and social misfits of a big-name Manhattan law firm
(01/15/99)

The Double Legacy: Reflections on a Pair of Deaths By Rachel Hadas (Nonfiction)
Faber & Faber, reviewed by Susan Shapiro
After the author, a renowned poet, loses her mother and a dear friend in the same year, she seeks an honest, idiosyncratic form of solace.

Down by The River By Edna O'Brien (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
A shimmering, magnificent novel, inspired by a real-life Irish rape victim who was forbidden to leave the country to obtain an abortion.

Down With Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire By Michael Dobbs (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Phil Leggiere
The longtime Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post traces the Soviet Union's demise, from Brezhnev's reign to Yeltsin's.

Down With the Old Canoe By Steven Biel (Nonfiction)
Norton, reviewed by Dwight Garner
This cultural history of the Titanic disaster examines the myriad ways the sinking was used as legend and propaganda.

The Dragon Hunt By Tran Vu (Fiction)
Hyperion, Reviewed by Judith Coburn
In his first collection in English, an expatriate Vietnamese author tells grueling (and highly original) stories of suffering.
(07/20/99)

Drawing Life By Phil Leggiere (Fiction)
Free Press, reviewed by Michele Goldberg
Part survival memoir and part cantankerous rant, this book tells how its author survived an attack by the Unabomber.

Drawn With the Sword By James M. McPherson (Nonfiction)
Oxford University Press, reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
A collection of essays on the Civil War tackling questions large (Why did the Confederacy lose?) and small (Were the dying Grant's memoirs effected by his medicinal cocaine use?).

Brown Dog of the Yaak By Rick Bass (Nonfiction)
The Dream of the Marsh Wren By Pattiann Rogers (Nonfiction)
Milkweed Editions, reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
Two authors confront the dramas of the natural world and the writing life.
(07/23/99)

Dreambirds: The Strange History of the Ostrich in Fashion, Food, and Fortune By Rob Nixon (Nonfiction)
Picador USA, review by Andrew O'Hehir
Solitary, plumed, nasty, flightless and weird: Ladies and gentlemen, the world's most peculiar bird. (04/19/00)

Dreamer By Charles Johnson (Fiction)
Scribner, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
From the author of the National Book Award-winning "Middle Passage," a novel about the final two years of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life
(03/25/98)

Dreaming of Hitler By Daphne Merkin (Nonfiction)
Crown, reviewed by Peter Kurth
Neurotic and self-important essays -- on topics such as spanking, shoplifting and therapy -- from the New Yorker writer.

Dreaming Out Loud By Bruce Feiler (Nonfiction)
Avon Books, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
A cutting and often very funny look inside all that's tawdry -- and all that's heartfelt -- about the country music scene today.
(04/27/98)

The Dress Lodger By Sheri Holman (Fiction)
Atlantic Monthly Press, review by Marion Lignana Rosenberg
A lurid and literary novel offers a tale of prostitution, cholera and body snatching in 19th century England.
(02/28/00)

Drinking: A Love Story By Caroline Knapp (Nonfiction)
Dial, reviewed by James Marcus
A memoir about alcoholism and its discontents, from a journalist who was skilled at hiding her addiction.

Drown By Junot Diaz (Fiction)
Riverhead Books, reviewed by Robert Spillman
Tough tales from the Domenican barrio from the touted next young gun of American fiction.

Drug Crazy By Mike Gray (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Philip Nobile
An engrossing, fast-moving polemic about everything that's wrong with America's current drug policies
(06/10/98)

Duel By Thomas Fleming (Nonfiction)
Basic Books, Reviewed by By Katharine Whittemore
A sensational history recounts the face-off that altered the course of the nation.
(09/29/99)

Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture By Katharine Washburn and John Thornton, editors (Nonfiction)
Norton, reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
A collection condemning the decline of American culture, from Madonna to cookbooks to the pronunciation of the word "mother."

East of the Mountains By David Guterson (Fiction)
Harcourt Brace & Company , Reviewed by Janice Harayda
The author of "Snow Falling on Cedars" confronts suicide.
(04/08/99)

Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture from Astro Boy to Zen Buddhism By Jeff Yang, Dina Gan, Terry Hong and the staff of A. Magazine (Nonfiction)
(Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Gary Krist
This playful book smartly introduces readers to all things Asian, from Connie Chung to calligraphy to feng shui to sumo wrestling.

Eat Fat By Richard Klein (Nonfiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
With information and incantation, the author of "Cigarettes are Sublime" now encourages readers to embrace our fat.

Eat Me By Linda Jaivin (Fiction)
Broadway Books, reviewed by Courtney Weaver
This provocative first novel, about food, sex and semiotics, was a bestseller in the author's native Australia.

Eat Your Way Across The U.S.A. By Jane and Michael Stern (Nonfiction)
Broadway Books, reviewed by Sam Sifton
A guidebook to authentic American eats, from the authors of Gourmet magazine's "Two for the Road" column.

Echo House By Ward Just (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Dan Cryer
A sprawling novel about three generations of Washington power players, by the master chronicler of the political world.

Echoes of Autobiography By Naguib Mahfouz (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Robert Spillman
A collection of brief meditations from the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, this memoir is a kind of spiritual and intellectual guidebook.

Edisto Revisited By Padgett Powell (Fiction)
Holt, reviewed by Ed Hall
The sequel to Powell's acclaimed "Edisto," this quixotic novel about one man's search for identity (and a steady job) serves up a delicious oxymoron: the Modern Southerner.

The Education of Oscar Fairfax
By Louis Auchincloss (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Rich Nichols
An elegant exploration of moral ambiguity by one of our most acute observers of upper-class life.

Edward Albee: A Singular Journey By Mel Gussow (Fiction)
Simon & Schuster, reviewed by Steve Vineberg
The first biography of the man who wrote "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is politer than it needs to be.
(08/24/99)

8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters By Gini Sikes (Nonfiction)
Anchor, reviewed by Nell Bernstein
A journalist's report on the lives of female gangsters in three American inner cities.

An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England By Venetia Murray (Nonfiction)
Viking Books, Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
Regalese: A new history sheds dazzling light on extravagantly eccentric Regency England
(03/31/99)

The Elusive Embrace By Daniel Mendelsohn (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Frank Browning
Reflecting on questions of love, lust and gay identity, a classical scholar turns up meaning in unexpected places.
(06/03/99)

Emerald City By Jennifer Egan (Fiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Christine Muhlke
From the young author of the novel "The Invisible Circus," stories about models, housewives, fashion stylists and suburban teens that examine wild stirrings beneath placid surfaces.

The Emigrants By W.G. Sebald (Fiction)
New Directions, reviewed by Kurt Jensen
Jewish exiles in Austria, England and America, experience the strange, melancholy beauty of having had to give everything away.

Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me By Jaime Manrique (Nonfiction)
University of Wisconsin Press, reviewed by Daniel Reitz
A writer considers his place in the pantheon of homosexual Hispanic letters.
(06/25/99)

Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad By David Haward Bain (Nonfiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
It's sprawling and overloaded with facts, but this account of the building of the transcontinental railroad does justice to one of the great American achievements.
(11/15/99)

"Roger Fishbite" By Emily Prager (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Elizabeth Judd
Emily Prager's brilliant parody of "Lolita" rockets the famous '50s nymphet into the '90s.
(04/14/99)

The Enchantment of Lily Dahl By Siri Hustvedt (Fiction)
Henry Holt, reviewed by Megan Harlan
In sinister small-town Minnesota, a voluptuous waitress falls for an older, sophisticated college professor and stalks a ghost.

The End of Alice By A.M. Homes (Fiction)
Scribner, reviewed by Kate Moses
The vivid and disturbing novel about an imprisoned sex offender and his college-age female correspondent, from the author of "In A Country of Mothers."

The End of the Novel of Love By Vivian Gornick (Nonfiction)
Beacon Press, reviewed by Laura Miller
Literary essays that argue that, in this jaded age, novels can no longer depict romantic love as a path to insight or transcendence.

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition By Caroline Alexander (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Scott Sutherland
A book about the legendary explorer Ernest Shackleton, that take us back to the golden (if often brutal) era of Arctic exploration.
(12/03/98)

The Entertainment Economy: How Mega Media Forces Are Transforming Our Lives By Michael J. Wolf (Nonfiction)
Times Books, Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
The Shopping News: Move over, Adam Smith -- make way for Mickey Mouse
(03/15/99)

The Erotic in Sports By Allen Guttman (Nonfiction)
Columbia University Press, reviewed by Charles Taylor
The author, a professor at Amherst, examines the pervasive, but rarely mentioned, sexual element in male and female sports.

Errata: An Examined Life >By George Steiner (Nonfiction)
Yale University Press, Reviewed by Scott McLemee
A collection of essays and bitter intellectual memoirs by the brilliant New Yorker critic who barely escaped the Holocaust
(03/18/98)

Ethel & Ernest By Raymond Briggs (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Charles Taylor
A marvelously realized graphic novel captures a generation's worth of changes in working-class England.
(10/13/99)

Europa By Tim Parks (Fiction)
Arcade, Reviewed by Jo-Ann Mort
In this novel of ideas about the forthcoming European Union, a British professor makes a mess of his personal life
(12/11/98)

Even The Stars Look Lonesome By Maya Angelou (Nonfiction)
Random House, reviewed by Peter Kurth
Autobiographical essays about overcoming life's obstacles, from a writer who has become an American institution.

The Everlasting Story of Nory By Nicholson Baker (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Charles Taylor
From the author of "Vox" and "The Fermata," a tale about a 9-year-old American schoolgirl in England.
(05/08/98)

"Everything You Know" by Zöe Heller By John Frederick Moore
In the English journalist's skillful first novel, a creep reads his dead daughter's diaries. (01/24/00)

"Eve: A Biography"By Pamela Norris (Nonfiction)
New York University Press, Reviewed by Maria Russo
As this remarkable survey demonstrates, for centuries the original hussy has given men a great excuse for controlling women.
(12/06/99)

The Exes By Pagan Kennedy (Fiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Mark Athitakis
A spunky, tuneful novel about a Boston-based band comprised entirely of former lovers
(07/08/98)

Exquisite Corpse By Poppy Z. Brite (Fiction)
Simon and Schuster, reviewed by James Marcus
Adventures in cannibalism, throat-slitting and disembowelment, from the popular 29-year-old horror novelist Poppy Z. Brite.

The Ex-Files: New Stories About Old Flames Edited by Blake Ferris (Fiction)
Context, review by Virginia Heffernan
A splendid piece of mythmaking views the young hero's coming of age through the lens of Huckleberry Finn.
(02/14/00)

Ex Libris By Anne Fadiman (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Reviewed by Dan Cryer
An unapologetic confession of raging bibliophilia, from the editor of the American Scholar and the author of last year's fine "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down."
(10/07/98)

The Extra Man By Jonathan Ames (Fiction)
Scribner, Reviewed by Charles Taylor
If charm were snowflakes, this novel -- about a refined transvestite teacher living on the cheap in Manhattan -- would be a blizzard
(11/02/98)